Those prank calls were funny only to the adolescent on the other end of the line, but they made a good point: Using an old-school, inefficient toilet (or just having a little drip) costs more $$$ than you’d ever think. Changing to a high-efficiency toilet…

**Saves you $110 per year ($2200 over the life of the toilet) on average!

**Saves nearly 13,000 gallons of water every year!!

Plus, EBMUD and CCWD both offer REBATES on high-efficiency toilets. Right now, EBMUD’s is $50.00. CCWD’s is $125.

You can do your budget a double favor – right now and every time you pay your water bill – by switching to high-efficiency toilets.

Here are some helpful hints from EBMUD…

A running toilet can waste two gallons of water per minute. A silent leak can waste up to 7,000 gallons of water per month.

***To find SILENT LEAKS, put food coloring in the tank. Do not flush. Check the toilet bowl ten minutes later. If you see color in the bowl, the tank has a silent leak.***

If you hear or see a leak, it may be caused by a WORN OUT FLAPPER VALVE. The solution: replace your flapper.

***First, shut off the water at the toilet (not at the house line). Then remove the worn flapper and replace it.***

OR GIVE US A CALL AND WE’LL HOP TO IT FOR YOU.

Interesting factoid: according to the EPA’s Watersense website (http://www.epa.gov/watersense/), if every household in the US changed to high-efficiency toilets (now there’s a plumber’s dream!), we’d save 520 billion gallons of water per year, or the amount of water that flows over Niagara Falls in about 12 days.